HEY IM BACK! I HOPE I STILL HAVE PEOPLE READING AND SUPPORTING MY STORY, I SAW TWO RECENT REVIEWS THAT SEEMED TO SUPPORT THAT THEORY, WHICH MAKES ME HAPPY OF COURSE. NOW TO GET SOMETHINGS OUT OF THE WAY. NO IM NOT ABANDONING THE STORY. I WANT TO FINISH IT. THE THING IS IVE BEEN EXTREMELY BUSY WITH COLLEGE, I DOUBLE MAJOR IN LAW AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, WHILE MINORING IN POLITICAL SCIENCE SOOO IVE BEEN SWAMPED. ALSO, TRUTH BE TOLD I WAS A LITTLE DISCOURAGED WITH HOW THE REVIEWS FOR MY STORY HAVE BEEN PROGRESSING. I LOVE ALL MY REGULARS TO DEATH DONT GET ME WRONG, HOWEVER, IDK I FELT A LITTLE PUT OFF SOMETIMES, AND THEN ALSO I HAD STARTED A FEW OTHER PROJECTS AS WELL. ANYWAYS IM OUT OF MY FUNK NOW, AND HAVE MANAGED TO GAIN MORE TIME TO WRITE. I WILL BE FINISHING OFF THIS STORY, PLUS MY OTHER ONE THAT I PUBLISHED. ALSO, I HAVE A NEW ONE IVE BEEN MULLING OVER THAT IS FOR KUROKO NO BASKET, IM EXCITED TO PUBLISH IT AND SEE SOME FEEDBACK LET ME KNOW IF YOU GUYS THINK I SHOULD. THANK YOU FOR BEING PATIENT WITH ME, ENJOY THIS CHAPTER, EVEN THOUGH ITS A BIT VAGUE AND SHORT, BETTER IS SOON TO COME ;)


Etsuko stared down at the blood-covered carpet. The smell was unbearable, her hands and knees were coated with the sticky substance. Every breath she took rattled in her chest.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked her voice trembling. The body at her feet, dead completely drained of blood. There was nowhere to run.

The person before her, his eyes were wild as he ran a blood coated hand over his cheek smearing his skin in the process. He let out a laugh, it sounded evil. Just pure evil.

"Isn't it obvious?" The boy asked the knife in his hand glinting dangerously.

Suddenly he sobered staring at her with predatory eyes. If asked Etsuko wouldn't have been able to distinguish what was scarier. The hysterical laughter or the emptiness in his gaze.

"They were getting in my way." The words were said so plainly that it sent physical chills down her body.

His eyes narrowed as he spoke his next words. "And so are you."

"You don't have to do this." She backed herself up trying to keep distance between them.

"Oh, sweetie..." He cooed seductively, a malicious grin settling on his lips. "You're right, I don't have to." And as he walked towards her. "I want to."

She looked around the room and tears fell from her eyes. There was nowhere to run. There was no way to escape. She was stuck.

"You'll regret sticking your nose in business that doesn't involve you." His tone was vicious, rage blazed in him as he got closer. "I'll be sure to attend your funeral."

A screamed ripped free from her throat. It was horrid, a sound that had been repressed from behind her ribs. A sound she had buried deep in the recesses of her memory.

An explosion interrupted the moment, her body fell. The foyer they had been standing in disappearing right under her feet as a black vortex swallowed her.

She landed on her stomach, face first on what felt like a hard-wooden surface. Etsuko couldn't tell.

Surrounding her was white. Everything around her was a dazzling white. Not that soft glow that could be considered comforting, but that painful, stabbing glare eyes ache when you stared at it. And she was cold. Like walking out the house in earlier Spring with nothing but a tank top on.

Her lip felt numb, she had fallen on her face. As her arms twitched and scrapped against the wooden surface she lay on, her vision suddenly shifted from dazzlingly bright to pitch black.

It was so dark. The kind of dark where your eyes created colored shapes and they dance teasingly in front of you.

"Did I get away? What the fuck?" Etsuko whispered to herself. Pushing hard against the wood to get onto her knees. She could feel something covering her eyes.

Was that why it was so dark?

It felt like fabric.

A pillowcase? A bandana?

She didn't know, and she was too frightened to reach up and feel it with her fingers. Etsuko wasn't even sure she'd be able to. Her whole body was shaking too much.

A fear-induced shake from deep inside. She swears she could physically feel her heart shutter, along with every vein in her body.

If you could see her right now, she would most likely look like the live representation of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake.

Everything about her own body in that moment felt unstable.

"Where am I?" she breathed, her lips itched as some flyaway hair tickled her face. Etsuko could hear what sounded like moving water. A river maybe? No, waves. Those were defiantly waves. She grew up near the ocean, she knows the sound by heart. She was on a beach then?

A frown marred her face. She barred her teeth and scraped her fingernails against the wooden surface she sat upon. The splitting wood and dirt gathered painfully under her fingernails.

No sand. No beach.

A pier perhaps.

Her breath hitched. Etsuko still remembers the last time she was on a pier overhanging the ocean, and as she struggled to inhale air through her panic attack, someone violently grabbed her.

Whoever it was held onto the scruff of her neck like she was some kind of animal. It hurt. A lot.

Her cry of pain was overshadowed by the man's voice. "Gotcha."

"NO!" She wailed knowing what came next.

"Come shark bait, this won't be too bad." His laugh echoed in her ears as he tossed her, blind, into the sea.


Tears soaked her face as she stifled a violent scream. Untangling herself from her covers was a mission. She felt so suffocated that for a moment, trapped under her blankets, she felt as if she was actually underwater.

But, as she broke free, full-body tremors jostling her, and stood shakily in the middle of her room. Etsuko soon came to realize she just woke from a nightmare.

She looked around the room, chest heaving and her eyes wide. The party dress she wore to the art gallery over the weekend was tossed haphazardly on a nearby bean bag, her heels thrown about as well. As she blinked and tried to focus Etsuko began to notice other things that dragged her back to earth, back to the present and far away from the hands of her sadistic mystery killer from her dreams.

Her lungs rattled as she stood there attempting deep calm breaths.

The time on her clock read 4 am. School was in a few hours. There's no way she will find sleep again, even if she wanted to.

Quietly, or what Etsuko hoped was quiet. She stumbled from her room, her legs barely able to hold her as she was still wired tight with fear.

Down the stairs, she ventured and B-lined for the kitchen, stopping abruptly at the sight that awaited her.

All the cabinets were open.

Her shoulders sagged, the last of any good energy she had, leaving her body.

"Just what I needed," Etsuko whined her voice a raspy mess. "And I thought Baachan was getting better."

After gathering herself and coming to terms that her day was not starting out the best, Etsuko got to work on distracting herself, she started with closing the cabinets.

Afterwards, breakfast was made for everyone, and once she ate, Etsuko took off upstairs deciding to go for a run. She's been slacking lately.

However, as she stood on the front porch in her typical gear, spandex shorts, her favorite gifted windbreaker, and some sports shoes, her stomach twisted up uncomfortably. Etsuko paused for a second, then she turns back to the front door walked inside and grabbed the spare set of keys.

As she walked out again, she locked the door behind her tucking the spare into her pocket. Usually, she left the place unlocked.

Not today. Not ever again after that.

Then she was off, so distracted by trying to get rid of her paranoia that she didn't notice the figure watching her.

Whoever they were clenched their fist. "You might be weary now but, you'll notice my efforts soon."